Stocks Plunge, Recover, After Fake Tweet of Attack on White House

Hackers sent fake tweet about explosions injuring the president

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An erroneous tweet was sent out by the AP's Twitter account after it was hacked on Tuesday, April 23.

Updated at 9:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, Apr 23, 2013

Hackers compromised Twitter accounts of The Associated Press on Tuesday, sending out a false tweet about an attack at the White House.

The false tweet said there had been two explosions at the White House and that President Barack Obama was injured. The attack on AP's Twitter account and the AP Mobile Twitter account was preceded by phishing attempts on AP's corporate network.

The AP confirmed that its Twitter account had been suspended following a hack and said it was working to correct the issue. The fake tweet went out shortly after 1 p.m. and briefly sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average sharply lower.